Put back Extreme trial on raid finder again...please

[Vaer]

Before RF, you couldn't queue for extremes in the DF unless you had a premade full party anyway when the EX trial just came out. They only allowed solo queueing a couple months later. So it being in the RF was somewhat of an improvement for solo queuers, maybe they kept some of them in there too long though.

3.1 (Thordan): The quests "The Limitless Blue (Extreme)" and "Thok ast Thok (Extreme)" have been adjusted as follows:
Players may now queue solo via the Duty Finder. (Ravana, Bis)

3.2(Sephirot): Players can queue solo for The Minstrel's Ballad: Thordan's Reign via the Duty Finder.

3.3(Nidhogg): Players may now queue solo for Containment Bay S1T7 (Extreme) via the Duty Finder. (Sephirot)

3.4(Sophia): RF (Sophia EX), Thordan+ moved.

Starting with Sophia EX in RF, you could queue as solo as soon as patch day. Before that the policy they settled on was they wouldn't even add a solo queue until they added echo.

[aleph_null]

Your interpretation of how DF and RF will affect things is based on the premise that players with clears are universally unwilling to help new players. I can't honestly say if that's true or not, since I don't do Extreme trials except with friends, but it seems pretty unlikely to me. And if there's even one person with a clear who will use DF if RF isn't available, that's still a positive for a player without a clear.

Not exactly, pre 3.3 DF for hard contents like thordan ex and a3s-a4s (post nerf and overgearing) in NA/EU data centers seemed to be pretty much dysfunctional, since new players won't be able to learn the whole fights in 60-90 minutes. DF queues for those fights became useless since people who want to practice later phases or aim to clear, let alone farm can't do what they want then they get matched with someone who's new to the fights. It's just an unofficial "first phase practice" queue, presumably with very abysmal clear rate, though I'm not playing in NA/EU data centers so I can only say that based on what people say in the forum. If those players who want to clear/farm won't queue, then even the newbies won't benefit at all since there's literally no chance for them to clear. The DF system in JP data centers worked because of the culture adopted by the players here, where DF is pretty much reserved for farming (or at least those who are ready to aim to clear), with little exceptions of people who have no idea queuing into those hard fights.

Keep in mind the premise of the OP's request is that new players are a liability. If that's the case, why are we expecting them to get clears with each other?

We are expecting them to learn the fight first before expecting clears. Other than sophia and zurvan I don't remember any previous ex trial being possible to be cleared by people new to the fight within one lockout.

[Sida]

ok you don't understand the problem.

the raid finder was added because it was impossible for people to clear content in the duty finder thus no one used it. and those that did would queue for an hour for thordan get in wipe in 4 mins and disband and go back to the queue... it was much the same in arr if you tried to duty finder coil or extreme primals back then that is the reason they added the raid finder.

That might be slightly mispresenting the point. While it is true that before RF all raids and ex primals were in the DF, it was not possible to queue into the latest raid or ex primals without full party. It was technical limitation, not just practical one. You were forced to gather one, either by having a static or, indeed, through PF. However both of these methods were limited within the server drastically cutting the pool of possible participants. Raid finder was an attempt to give change to break this server barrier for the content that was, rightfully, considered too hard to be released to totally random parties. Howevr while announcing "practise from start" or "after adds" or similar worked to a point in PF those different options in RF didn't achieve the same result, they only divided the pool of non completers into different queues that never got through. This the only usable part of the RF was the ultimate toggle for completion.

Cross server PF is the second take to the same situation. Does it force people to be a bit social to actually look for a farm party? Yes it does. But that's not different from the same limitations in place before RF.

[Talraen]

Not exactly, pre 3.3 DF for hard contents like thordan ex and a3s-a4s (post nerf and overgearing) in NA/EU data centers seemed to be pretty much dysfunctional, since new players won't be able to learn the whole fights in 60-90 minutes. DF queues for those fights became useless since people who want to practice later phases or aim to clear, let alone farm can't do what they want then they get matched with someone who's new to the fights. It's just an unofficial "first phase practice" queue, presumably with very abysmal clear rate, though I'm not playing in NA/EU data centers so I can only say that based on what people say in the forum. If those players who want to clear/farm won't queue, then even the newbies won't benefit at all since there's literally no chance for them to clear. The DF system in JP data centers worked because of the culture adopted by the players here, where DF is pretty much reserved for farming (or at least those who are ready to aim to clear), with little exceptions of people who have no idea queuing into those hard fights.

You said that if "those players who want to clear/farm won't queue, then even the newbies won't benefit at all since there's literally no chance for them to clear" but the alternative (the raid finder option, which is what is being asked for in this thread) is that the people who are farming will queue and the newbies still won't benefit at all, because they can't queue with them. Unless you mean that newbies will be able to use the duty finder to queue with other newbies who also don't have clears, but I don't know why that would improve their chances either.

We are expecting them to learn the fight first before expecting clears. Other than sophia and zurvan I don't remember any previous ex trial being possible to be cleared by people new to the fight within one lockout.

This thread is about an option to prevent people without a clear from queuing with people who don't want to queue with them. If those people learn the fight, or have even done it on another character, they still can't queue with them in the raid finder. So how does them learning the fight help them here?

[bswpayton]

Ramuh Extreme required a lot of coordination to make sure terror was consistently cleansed. It didn't require voice chat, but it certainly helped. And the

I do not recall such a stacking mechanic in arr anywhere, and you may not need a voice chat for sophia but it is punishing if the stacking mechanics arent done properly. In sep if one person screws up tethers its pretty much a reset, in zurvan if one person screws up soar or two then its a done deal. I dont see this anywhere in the other primals , there are things you have to do in shiva extreme like spreading etc but three people could die and you can still recover. Leviathan there is no such group activity at all, not even in titan extreme its all on individual effort, but when you put in mechanics where one person can ruin the whole run you will get many parties with the no bonus or dont join us mentality.

[Vidu]

You seem to be pretty informed on the game and I would really like to know why the primals started going with these raid heavy mechanics instead of just more individual effort fights. Before sep there was nothing I recalled that required nearly as much coordination before it with the tethers and the towers or the blue puddle. And I would say sep is def not harder than say even ramuh extreme which yea had its dps checks but wasnt something you had to have voice chat for.

Even if certain mechanics are more an individual effort there were mechanics way before Seph Ex that required the whole party to pay attention - and if one person messed up, it could mean a wipe.

Garuda EX - Kill spiny to early - the whole raid is dead. One person (or even one Egi, always lovely) was enough to mess that up. (Also: stack in the bubble to avoid damage - not so different from stacking to share damage, right?)
Titan EX - people used to bait the puddles, specially the doppel-ones in the last phase. Proper stacking and simutaionsly dodging was required to dodge them.
Ifrit EX - Nails were killed in a specific order, to make sure that they all died while no one was to close to the healer that had this bomb-thing. Theter out two people together, who had to stay clsoe to each other. Ifrit charges required the whole group - except the one bomb-healer, careful! - to move together.
King Mog EX - aaaah, beautiful! No one kills a moggle early, please! Watch out - is there someone else attacking the moggle your chewing on? Is someone interrupting that BLM - or do you risk it to give it a slap and eventually mess it up for everyone? Also: Did you make sure that there was at least one dps close to the paladin, to avoid both healers getting confused? (That mechanic targets the three people closest to the paladin and puts this moggle-confuse on them - one will hopefully be the tank tanking the paladin, the two others shouldnt be both healers...)
Leviathan EX - Whos getting the shield-thingie? Is everyone attacking the adds? And who the hell is pushing Levi down when he really shouldnt take anymore damage?! (Granted, this one most likely requires not a lot of effort when it comes to coordination)
Ramuh EX - KING of coordination! Do tanks need orbs? Should the party clear them? Is it safe to break the theter - or do we have to let tanks them first because thats more important? Is someone getting the charmed people? Did both of them made it to A or not? (And why is that dragoon standing next to me? Aaaaaah, ramuh will kil... ah, yeah, dragoon dead, cool)
Shiva EX - Stack behind her to share sword, dont stack for staff and ice puddles. Everyone make sure they got their safespot for that. Stack behind her to bait avalanche, BUT! make sure you move out of that if you dont have the blue mark!

For HW-primals...

I cant really think about mechanics like that for Bismarck and Ravana - Bismarck because it probably has non and Ravana, because its been ages since I've done the fight properly... and I dont have it down as much as the ARR-primals. However:

Thordan EX - Get your towers! Stack infront of the healer! Stack with the marker - on the tank, please, but dont stack when you have the other marker! Granted, they said they overdid it with Thordan...

...I can go through the other HW-primals, if you like? But let me tell you this: All fights are pretty scripted. You can learn them by heart and if everyone knows whats happening, no team coordination is required, because everyone know what they have to do and where they have to be at any given time. Stacking in Sephirot? Easly an individual effort - you just have to know where you have to stand. Can one person mess that up easly for the whole group and wipe them? Sure - but that was already the case with the very first EX-primal, Garuda. Now, that everyone is either doing ARR-primals unsyched or way overgeared you dont see a lot of mechanics anymore. No surprise that it seems that there are non and that those primals never required coordination - when they did, infact. A year from now, the towers and stacking in Seph wont matter anymore either. Healers will be able to heal through the damage and he will be dead before the blue puddles even have a chance to mess with you.
Primals are simply not a solo-challenge. If you want a solo-challenge playing an MMO is probably a bad idea.

I do not recall such a stacking mechanic in arr anywhere, and you may not need a voice chat for sophia but it is punishing if the stacking mechanics arent done properly. In sep if one person screws up tethers its pretty much a reset, in zurvan if one person screws up soar or two then its a done deal. I dont see this anywhere in the other primals , there are things you have to do in shiva extreme like spreading etc but three people could die and you can still recover. Leviathan there is no such group activity at all, not even in titan extreme its all on individual effort, but when you put in mechanics where one person can ruin the whole run you will get many parties with the no bonus or dont join us mentality.

You dont recall those mechanics because you didnt do those fights when they were current content, as you have stated a few times in threads regarding this issue. Today you can recover from three dead people in Shiva EX - but did you know that she has an enragetimer? Actually, she has two - adds have to die fast enough and she gets stacks of her damage up buff (goes up to 16, at 12 you're pretty much fucked - and even if you consider Shiva attractive you dont want that...). To mayn people die - thats about it for the raid.
I've seen Zurvan parties recover from people dying to soar or messing up theters. Two people messing up theters is nasty, but you can still clear the fight.

[seekified]

I don't see what the problem is here. People who can farm trials don't want to play with people who haven't cleared the trial. I think that's fair - it'd mean potentially wasting seven other people's time because one person has questionable skill or knowledge of the fight in question.

On the other hand, PF learning parties definitely work, and they don't just magically disappear from existence a few hours after a fight is released. It was only recently that I cleared Thordan EX and Zurvan EX, but the learning and clear parties that I created filled up within minutes.

Long-term, I would like to see a merge of the RF functionality into DF so that everything is in one place. There are so many people wondering how to even queue for the things that used to be in the RF because they don't know it exists.

[Feidam]

I think another issue here is the attitude that new players just want a free easy clear. Which is a blanket generalization that is of course true for some but not others. I find it interesting that folks are telling the players with no clears to go to the party finder because of "X" then get all flustered when the that is said to them. The simple fact is both sides want smoother easier access to the content. The problem as it is now is those with the clear have the easier access whether or not they are skilled players. Meanwhile, those without the clear are struggling to find groups to clear. There has to be middle ground somewhere but this community has become so against the bonus unless they happen to be farming said resource. I'd wager most new players who want to do the primals and raids want to do so to enjoy the content. They might be more casual but that does not equate to them being less skillful.

[Feidam]

As to the person who complained about the raid mechanics in primal battles...I'm not sure what the issue here is. It has always been that way. The difference was you had hard mode primals which gave you a reward to progress, the. Extremes came along with another reward. Only extremes are giving people rewards now. This also needs to change imo.

[bswpayton]

As to the person who complained about the raid mechanics in primal battles...I'm not sure what the issue here is. It has always been that way. The difference was you had hard mode primals which gave you a reward to progress, the. Extremes came along with another reward. Only extremes are giving people rewards now. This also needs to change imo.

hard moods are way to easy to get a reward from